


More Than This

by Findarato



Category: Hakuouki
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:05:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4897504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findarato/pseuds/Findarato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shinpachi/Chizuru, with the prompt being 'Have I entered an alternate universe or did you really just crack a smile for me?" but I ended up loosely interpreting it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheStarsHaveAligned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStarsHaveAligned/gifts).



> Post-canon fic (and not Shinkai compliant lol).

_**More Than This** _

This isn't a problem of being all right or not all right. They've established loss is hard, as is life, but they're fine and coping. Coping has levels, though. And Shinpachi supposes they're at the stage when the end of the day is not looked forward to, but rather a thing that happens and you end up thinking about the day and how it passed…and how it'd be like if some people were around.

He wouldn't call it lonely.

Quiet, that was it. Like his life before Shieikan. Not boring, but typical, and probably he'd be some ronin if not for stepping foot into that dojo. The small graces are the days he visits Chizuru, because he will always like her food, her company, and he'd always bring some of his writing so that could talk about that.

They talk a lot about the past. Sometimes he has to stop himself from ruffling her hair because he's so used to doing it around Heisuke. And he can't smack her on the back because…well, that'd probably hurt because she nowhere near Sano's size. Today is like that, Shinpachi polishing his bowl with his chopsticks and stopping short of licking it, while telling her something about Hijikata that he had overheard from Souji.

"He was yelling so much, I thought his face would turn purple like his kimono."

"Does that mean he yelled way more before the Shinsengumi?"

"Nah. He only yelled at Souji for stupid things. Most of the time he was nice." Really nice, almost like Kondou, but with less patience and a quicker temper. "He wasn't strict, actually. All of us were lazy about paying…but he never kicked us out. Not even when Sano and me were drunk and singing about–-" he coughs. "Things."

"Things?"

Terrible things. "Silly stuff-–you know what drunk men are like."

"Ah. Yes." She blushes a little. "The things I sometimes heard people say at night when they come back…"

He scratches the back of his head and plinks his chopsticks down on his empty bowl. "Anyway, that was great. Thanks for the food, as usual."

"You're welcome."

Getting to his feet, he picks up their bowls for washing. They've made this such a habit–-she cooks, he washes, and then they talk sometimes until the sun rises and they sleep in, and after another meal, he leaves.

He listens to her hum as he scrubs the chopsticks, of her feet padding against the floor as she puts things away and takes others out. He watches when she puts her hair, in the way she used to.

She could still pass for a boy, a little. Chizuru once mentioned she used to pin all of her up, like most people did, but after all this time, he still hasn't seen her do that, except that one time she dressed up as a geiko.

_I wouldn't mind it, seeing that again._

"Ah, Nagakura-san?"

"Yeah?"

"You've been washing those chopsticks for the past minute."

"Oh." He puts them aside. "I'll go dump out this water and be back."

She was too nice to say he'd been staring at her. A nervous laugh sticks in his throat as he recalls calling himself like an older brother to her.

 _One of these days, you're going to have to be honest yourself,_ he thinks as he returns and sits back down.

**.**

He wakes up with the ink dangerously close to his face, the smell of it hanging heavily in the air. The light outside tells him it's still early; he not sure why he's awake.

Chizuru lies about a meter away, curled up in a blanket. Her hair is still tied, and he wonders if it's uncomfortable, so he reaches out to untie it. The strands fall, pooling in his fingers even has he moves away.

It's not the first time he's touched her hair, so it's not that. It's…it's how this is now their lives. Remembering. Continuing. Whatever you did, whatever happened, life went on. He supposes he's mostly settled down. He has steady work, a good enough pay, and he can get drinks and visit Chizuru. That's not so bad.

But it could be better, in some ways. He knows he should meet new people, make new friends. They won't ever be replacements, but more people would be good.

Yet how would it seem to people, if he told them he visits a woman's house every week? Of course that'd be taken the wrong way. He'd set them straight, but he doesn't want to bring that pressure down upon Chizuru.

He thunks his head against the wall, and stares towards the window.

Chizuru stirs, and he realises he probably was a little loud.

"Nagakura-san?"

"You can still sleep, it's early."

"But why are you up?"

"It just happened…" and it's a good thing, or else he might've knocked ink everywhere.

She sits up anyway. "Are you hungry? There's leftover rice and I can make onigiri, or something else."

"I'm fine." He smiles though. "too early to eat anything."

"I see."

This silence is neither comfortable nor stiff, but it's a little empty, so he fills it with his voice. "Do you have any plans for the future?"

"The future?" She hesitates. "Beyond this, no." She serves as a doctor; today is her only day off, and even then, emergencies could happen. "I don't think much about it."

"Yeah, neither do I." He half-grins. It's true; he's asked himself this, but his moments of thinking about the future were less than how much he talks about the past. "This is nice though."

"I agree." she pulls the blanket up a little higher around her shoulders. "I like it."

"I'm still glad I found here."

"Mm." Chizuru nods. "Having someone I know is always better, under any circumstances."

"There's a chance it might not just be us."

"I know," she answers too quickly. "But I don't want to look."

He understands. To look, you pinned hopes on people's answers, asking, walking and stretching yourself to the point of breaking. Waiting like this, the answer will comes to you, and find you instead.

"You'll have me as long as I keep this job." And he feels like it'll be a long time. "And even then, I'd still find time to visit you."

"I almost never hear you talk about your work these days."

"Really?" He launches into a slightly long explanation, and notes that she pays attention and despite them both being tired, they're functioning and sharing each other's presence still. He cherishes it, from how her eyes fix on a point on his face, wandering every once in a while, and how the blankets dwarf her, and her hair down like this is a little distracting because he wants to comb it.

"Nagakura-san, I think I'm a little jealous."

"Jealous?"

"Of how you can talk to people so easily. That's a talent. You have a talent for talking to people and having them listen to you."

 _Not that it worked on Kondou-san,_ he nearly says, but that's old history and he honestly can't hold that against him. "I guess I do. I can put people to sleep, too. Heisuke sometimes would visit my room at night and make me talk, so that he could fall asleep. I'd mess with him by telling jokes until we both couldn't sleep, and Hijikata-san would be made in the morning because we were so tired."

She laughs. "Did he? I mean, did Heisuke really do that? You do have a nice voice, and you explain things in a really clear way. I think I could listen for a while too."

"Y..es, he did." Shinpachi stumbles over the word, his gaze a little stuck on her mouth.

"…is something wrong?"

"You smiled."

"I smiled?"

"You laughed too." He shrugs a shoulder. "I mean, I've seen you do, but it's been a while since I saw it."

She lowers her head, and he hastens to explain. "I'm not saying you're unhappy. A lot's happened, and I don't feel like myself sometimes. It's like the people here don't understand what we went through, and they expect us to be normal…to be polite, do our jobs…" he takes a breath. "It's hard for me to really laugh sometimes, too."

They're caught in transitions, of running to keep up with the times. He can't carry a sword anymore, and there's no need for her to dress as a boy. But they themselves, they're the same, and they flounder in the aftermath of a war that swept them away.

"I'm also jealous in some ways," he finds himself saying, "that their lives aren't a mess like ours." They didn't have to see people die by going mad, or deal with supernatural things, or have to say goodbye to their comrades.

"Nagakura-san…" Chizuru starts to say, and then she stops. Instead, she pulls closer until they're next to each other, and then drapes part of the blanket over him. "I get it."

"I know you do." Survivors who remembered. Even now, he's thinking about the next part he plans to write about the Shinsengumi. He hooks an arm around her waist, and feels her lean her head against his upper arm. "Thanks."

"And thank you, too." She tightens her lips, before they smooth out into a smile, smaller, but still as bright as before. "For reminding me."

They sit like that, not say anything. Eventually, she falls asleep, and he's beginning to feel it pull at his eyes, but he resists, a little longer, until the paper in the window goes from blue to pink, and he knows the sun is rising.

He still wants to run his fingers through her hair, but he doesn't. Rather, he looks at her, because while they're the last, they're not alone. And maybe someday, they'd be more than this. Someday they wouldn't just look back, but look forward, and further ahead. Like the past was pushing them to face it. Coping doesn't last forever; they deserved the happiness, now, of searching for what they wanted.

The kiss he presses to the top of her head before he settles back is a promise of that, of future things, when he find the right time and right words that she deserves.

**.end.**


End file.
